Advent 11/27/22: Sacred Time

Finding Serenity

Isaiah 2:1-5  (The Message translation)

The Message Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem:
There’s a day coming
when the mountain of God’s House
Will be The Mountain—
solid, towering over all mountains.
All nations will river toward it,
people from all over set out for it.
They’ll say, “Come,
let’s climb God’s Mountain,
go to the House of the God of Jacob.
He’ll show us the way he works
so we can live the way we’re made.”
Zion’s the source of the revelation.
God’s Message comes from Jerusalem.
He’ll settle things fairly between nations.
He’ll make things right between many peoples.
They’ll turn their swords into shovels,
their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation;
they won’t play war anymore.
Come, family of Jacob,
let’s live in the light of God.

As I went over these words from Isaiah, what kept coming to my mind was the Serenity
Prayer. The first part was written by Winnifred Crane Wygal in 1933, with additions by
Reinhold Niebuhr in 1943.

God, grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.

-Barb Cattell